Roudhah Al Mazrouei's work is dedicated to her roots — specifically to her mother's side of the family, and to a village called Siji, near the Hajar Mountains in the Northern Emirates. When she was a kid, there was no phone signal, no TV, and even now, there is barely any Wi-Fi.

She paints in oil, builds large-scale sculptural installations, makes films, and works with materials sourced from the landscape itself — charcoal, rocks, a traditional saffron paste called snaah that people once wore in their hair and that still carries the smell of celebration.

This year, she is showing a solo booth at Art Dubai — all new work, all tied to Siji, some of it painted plein air directly from the landscape. It is a preview of a larger solo exhibition opening in December at Alserkal Avenue with Taymour Grahne Projects.

We talked with Roudhah about what she is bringing to Art Dubai, about her need to honour her heritage, about the materials she works with — charcoal, snaah, and rocks pulled straight from the mountains — and about why you will never be able to tell, by looking at her artworks, what she was feeling when she made them.

— Roudhah, to start, could you tell me a bit about your family background?

— Sure! My mom is a professor at the United Arab Emirates University, and my dad is an agricultural engineer who works at the municipality in Al Ain. They got married, moved there, built their careers there, and then had me.

I am the eldest of five. My siblings all went into very different fields. One sister is a nutritionist. My brother is in the army and works in nursing. My other sister is majoring in special education, and my youngest sister wants to study biomedical engineering.

— So you are the only one who went into art. What did your parents say when you chose this path?

— It definitely wasn’t easy. My parents both had very successful careers, and there is also a big generational gap between us. We grew up with the mindset that becoming a doctor or an engineer was the only reliable way to make good money.

It was especially difficult because I am the eldest child, so there were a lot of expectations for me to set the standard for my siblings. When I first entered university and told my parents I wanted to study art, they weren’t happy about it at all. They tried to convince me otherwise, and my extended family also strongly opposed the idea. Honestly, at that point, I don’t think anyone really believed in me.

But I did it anyway. I have always been very stubborn, so once I made the decision, I committed to making it the right one.

When I first started at New York University Abu Dhabi, I actually began in civil engineering just to make sure I truly didn’t like it. I was good at it and had the grades for it, but I didn’t enjoy it.

By the summer after my first year, going into my second year, I decided to switch. Because NYU Abu Dhabi is a liberal arts university, the transition wasn’t too difficult since you don’t officially declare your major until sophomore year. So I ended up majoring in both fine arts and art history, and that was it.

— I read that you once said, “Art has always been tied to the places I come from.” I would really love to dive deeper into that idea. Why did you choose to create works connected to the region you were born in and its heritage?

— During my senior year at university, my capstone project felt like a defining moment. It was the first time I was being asked to present my work not just academically, but to the world — to galleries, to the commercial art world, to people who could potentially open the door for me to become a full-time artist. It really felt like a catalyst moment.

So when I started brainstorming ideas for my capstone, I knew I wanted to create something deeply personal and meaningful to me. That was also the time when I began looking more seriously into the places my family comes from, especially the places we used to visit during our weekend trips to our relatives in the Northern Emirates when I was younger.

A lot of that work became connected to my mother’s side of the family. My mom grew up in a village called Siji, near the Hajar Mountains. When I was a child, I remember visiting my grandmother’s house and having these very vivid memories of intimate family spaces.

At first, I didn’t want to paint those private memories directly because they felt too personal to share publicly. Instead, I became fascinated by the landscape around them. I started researching Siji more deeply and realised how unique the place actually is. Historically, it was a crossroads for trade and even a well-known camping destination. The land is incredibly rich in natural resources and water. There were waterfalls, valleys full of frogs and tadpoles, and quartz crystals scattered on the ground from nearby quarries that cut marble from the mountains.

I became almost obsessed with these rocks and landscapes. I even met with geography professors at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi to learn more about the geological history of the area. I discovered that the Hajar Mountains are one of the most significant mountain ranges in the region, almost like the Himalayas of the Gulf. Millions of years ago, those mountain peaks were actually underwater before tectonic shifts pushed them upward. Geographically, the range even continues seamlessly into Iran if you close the Gulf gap.

All of this made the place feel even more meaningful to me. I also started painting from photos my mother had taken when she was young — old, disposable camera photos she asked my grandfather to develop in a photography studio in Sharjah.

So the work became more than just showing parts of my life to the world. It became a personal love letter to this landscape and to the history connected to my family.

It is funny because my mom still asks me why I paint Siji so much! When I was younger, I actually didn’t like going there. There was no phone signal, no TV, and even now, there is barely any Wi-Fi. We go there specifically to disconnect. But as a child, I didn’t understand the beauty of that. Looking back now, my paintings feel almost like reparations — a way of honouring a place whose richness and beauty I didn’t fully appreciate until later in life.

— You work with materials like charcoal, saffron paste (snaah) and rocks. How did you arrive at those materials? I am sure you experimented with many different things along the way. What was your process of working with materials like, and why did you ultimately choose these ones?

— A lot of my focus on materials really came from my university capstone project. That was the moment when I decided to dive deeply into the landscape itself and think about what that place could offer me materially and conceptually.

The rocks, for example, came directly from my fascination with the mountains around Siji — the quartz, crystals, and geological layers that make up the landscape. I even started thinking about them metaphorically. I used to call the rocks “mountain peels,” almost as if the mountains were being peeled apart like an orange.

Charcoal came from researching traditional practices in Siji and beyond. I became interested in how natural charcoal was produced and used. In Siji, charcoal was often seen as a purifying material because it absorbs contaminants. People would even eat small charcoal nuggets or brush their teeth with it.

One of my favourite discoveries was learning how charcoal was used to purify water. Since Siji had many natural wells, people would sometimes place pieces of charcoal into the wells to absorb impurities and make the water drinkable again. I found that idea of purification really powerful.

Then there is snaah — the saffron paste — which became important to me because of its connection to scent and memory. It is made from cherry pit powder, ground saffron, and rose water, and it is traditionally applied along the hair parting and sideburns as a perfume and beautifying ritual during Eid, weddings, and celebrations.

I remember first experiencing it as a child in Siji. At the time, I didn’t really understand it, but as I grew older, I started realising how culturally significant and archival a material like that really is. It carries memory, ritual, and identity.

That connection became so important in my practice that I eventually made an entire 17-minute film centred around snaah. The film follows four girls and their relationship to it, set in the 1980s, with the snaah acting as a central thread throughout the story.

— Wow, beautiful. I am fascinated by your gazelle pieces — particularly the sculpture Gazelle Blood and, of course, 25 Fils, the coin work. What is the concept behind these works? And are they connected?

— I would say the two works are connected, yes. The fact that I created multiple sculptures centred around gazelles probably means I was going through a phase where I was thinking a lot about animals and symbolism.

But I also think many Emirati girls grow up fascinated by gazelles. The gazelle is deeply connected to ideas of beauty and elegance here. Even growing up, being compared to a gazelle was considered a compliment. People talk about having “gazelle eyes,” for example, as a beauty standard.

With Gazelle Blood, I wanted to play with that symbolism and language. The title isn’t meant to sound gruesome. In Arabic, the word for the colour maroon is actually “gazelle blood.” So I became interested in that phrase and the poetic imagery behind it.

I liked the idea of painting a gazelle using the colour “gazelle blood” itself. The phrase originally comes from the fact that a gazelle’s blood is said to have a much darker, deeper maroon tone rather than a bright red colour. So the work became a kind of visual and linguistic play on that expression.

As for 25 Fils, that piece actually began during a pottery class at university. We were asked to create a hand-built clay relief sculpture, and I decided to recreate the 25 fils coin. It is the smallest denomination still in circulation in the UAE, and it features the gazelle, which for me represents elegance and beauty.

— There is also an amazing work called Sikham, a seven-meter sculpture, that was shown at Sikka. Could you tell me more about that piece?

— Sikham is the Arabic word for charcoal, and the work was inspired by the idea of purification through charcoal. I became interested in how charcoal purifies water, and that eventually led me to think about the purification of air through the barjeel, the traditional wind tower used in Gulf architecture.

The piece was a collaboration with Rattha architectural studio. We combined ideas from my graduation thesis with his architectural approach to create these large monolithic structures. The installation explored both the purification of air and the purification of water.

— Your works are deeply connected to your personal experiences, your life, and your relationship with nature. Is there a particular work whose story feels especially personal or emotionally significant to you?

— I’m actually a very private person. Even sharing small glimpses of my life — like painting the inside of my grandparents’ house — never felt completely natural to me.

Of course, like everyone, I have gone through difficult periods in my life. Last year, for example, wasn’t one of my best years. But I have always been very intentional about not letting my personal struggles affect my work or the direction of my practice.

My art is definitely inspired by my lived experiences, so in that sense, my life and my work are deeply intertwined. But at the same time, I protect my art very carefully. It is something extremely special to me, and I try not to let personal “hurricanes,” as I call them, shift it in a direction I don’t want it to go.

I like having control over the direction of my work. I have always been protective of the things that matter deeply to me.

It is actually similar to how I approached academics growing up. Even when I was going through difficult personal situations in high school or university, I never allowed those struggles to affect my grades or my academic performance. There was always a clear boundary for me.

I can point to certain paintings and honestly say that I was going through a hard time, but it probably wouldn’t be obvious from the work itself. The emotions are there, but they don’t appear directly on the surface.

— So we never really see in your work that you are going through something personally — whether through the colours, the composition, or the overall mood of the piece, right?

— I don’t think so. Maybe in the future — when I am older, later in my career, or a bit more free with my process — I will become more intuitive and allow that side of myself to appear more openly in the work. But right now, I am still very protective of that part of me.

— Thank you for sharing that part of yourself. So this year marks your first Art Dubai. What are you preparing for the fair, and what will we be able to see from you there?

— Yes, I am so excited! I will be presenting a solo booth, which makes it even more exciting. The booth also acts as a kind of preview for a larger solo exhibition I will have in December at Alserkal Avenue with Taymour Grahne Projects.

All of the works in the booth are new. There won’t be any older pieces. They are all connected through themes I have been exploring for a while: mountain ranges, landscapes, farms, and geological details like rocks.

The overall concept of the booth is really about offering glimpses of life in Siji. Some of the smaller paintings were even created plein air.

At the same time, I will also be participating in a group exhibition called Five Painters at Alserkal Avenue. It brings together five female painters from across the Gulf who create landscapes from memory. The works I am showing there are actually much brighter and more colourful — even using neon tones — which is a bit different and exciting for me.